This application claims the priority of German Application No. 100 17 599.6-22, filed in Germany on Apr. 8, 2000, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated by reference herein.
The invention relates to a trailing cable winch having an axially stationary, rotating winding arm which is disposed in a carrier tube and is driven by a motor arranged in the carrier tube. The trailing cable winch operates to deposit the trailing cable on an axially reversibly movable cable drum which is disposed on the carrier tube, in which case the rotation of the winding arm is synchronized with the advancing of the cable drum. As a result, during the linear movement of the cable drum, the advance per rotation of the winding arm corresponds exactly to the diameter of the trailing cable, and in the end position of the cable drum, exactly two cable layers are deposited above one another.
A trailing cable winch of this type is known from German Patent Document DE 198 12 335 C1.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,919,869 discloses a trailing cable winch which has a planet wheel transmission. The planet wheel transmission drives a cable drum which is axially displaceable arranged on a rotatable frame. In addition, the planet wheel transmission drives a shaft which is coaxially arranged with respect to the rotatable frame, this shaft having an endless vertically constructed groove. In this groove, a driving device is guided which is connected with the cable drum and therefore permits a displacement of the cable drum.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an active trailing cable winch for towed decoy bodies on combat airplanes which has the following characteristics:
a) smallest possible constructional size, while the winding volume is maximal and the mass is minimal;
b) derived from requirement a), a drive/transmission unit which, if possible, is integrated;
c) a depositing of the cable windings, which is as exact as possible, during the wind-up (exactly reproducible);
d) slow-speed run at a high torque as well as maximal wind-off and wind-up speeds;
e) minimizing of friction losses;
f) for high-voltage conductors and optical waveguides, a construction without rotating joints (requires a standing cable drum with a rotating winding arm); and
g) no bending radii smaller than 6 mm are permissible (leads to the breakage of the optical waveguide).
According to the invention, this object is achieved by providing a trailing cable winch in which a rotation of the winding arm is synchronized with the axial movement of the cable drum such that the cable drum advances an axial distance per rotation of the winding arm which corresponds substantially to a diameter of the trailing cable such that two cable layers are deposited above one another between end positions of the cable drum. The object of the invention meets the requirement that, per winding arm rotation, an exact drum advance of a trailing cable thickness takes place to the drum end; then almost no advance takes place for one rotation, so that, in the next higher position of the drum, the first winding comes to be situated as directly as possible on the drum flank. Subsequently, the winding operation is to be continued at a constant advance in the reverse direction. As a result, the accumulation of cable windings in the center area of a drum, which can often be observed, is avoided and the size is therefore minimized while the operational reliability is optimized.
The object of the invention has the following advantages:
a) optimizing of the trailing cable winch with respect to the space requirement and maintaining installation space limits;
b) flexibility of the drive with respect to its ability of adapting an output torque by easily exchangeable step-down stages;
c) optimizing of the winding design at the deflection points (lateral disks of the cable drum);
d) rotational rotor speed 0 to 2,000 minxe2x88x921 (corresponding to an axial cable winding speed of 0 to 14 m/sec);
e) avoidance of a return movement of the drive which is caused by the load on the trailing cable. For this purpose, when the driving motor is not activated, the trailing cable winch 2 is automatically locked by means of a locking brake 36 (FIG. 1) which causes the no-back securing; and
f) supporting and transmission of a torque caused by the trailing load.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.